International Clean Up Day Sept 19th, Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

[BlueViewDivers]

Blue View Divers in Koh Phi Phi Thailand will be hosting this year's September 19th International Clean Up Day Event.

Last year we coordinated a three day event for International Clean Up Day. On the first day we conducted a lesson in the local Thai school about recycling and rubbish and a group of 60 schoolchildren along with their teachers and Blue View Divers staff cleaned up Tonsai Beach in front of the school gathering up to 60 kilos of rubbish.
The following day we coordinated a beach clean up in Loh Dalum Bay where more than 50 volunteers gathered 501 kilograms of rubbish and recylable materials. This was followed by an underwater dive clean up around local sites on the 21st of September.
Over three days we collected a total of 625 Kilograms of rubbish which was collected, categorised and disposed of correctly.
For more information you can check out the following link
Blue View Divers - Eco Projects

This year we will be organising a similar event for International Cleanup Day with a beach clean up on Loh Dalum Bay beginning at 13:30pm at Blue View Divers on the 19th of September. Volunteers will be provided with drinking water and bin bags and after the cleanup there will be a free Barbeque at Sunflower Bar on the beach for all participating volunteers.

Anyone who is in the area around those dates are welcome to come and participate in the cleanup! Please help us keep Phi Phi beautiful!

For more information you can check out our website www.blueviewdivers.com
Or send us an email at info@blueviewdivers.com

See you in September!

Kind Regards

Lisa Zeffertt
Blue View Divers
Welcome to Blue View Divers Website
info@blueviewdivers.com
+66(0)7581971097

 

[BlueViewDivers]

Blue View Divers will be coordinating a three day event for International Cleanup Day 2009, sponsored by Blue View Divers, PADI, SSI, Greenfins, Aquamaster and local Tourist Police as well as many local businesses on Koh Phi Phi.

Last year we hosted a similar 3 day event which was well received with over 100 volunteers attending, where we gathered nearly 700 kilos of rubbish over the three days. The event was publicized on the PADI and Greenfins website as well as published in Krabi Magazine.

The schedule for the cleanup project is as follows.

19th September
Blue View Divers will be coordinating a beach cleanup on Loh Dalum Bay, we will be meeting outside Blue View Divers, Viewpoint Resort at 1:30pm for a briefing and our aim is to clean up Loh Dalum Beach until about 4.30pm
Volunteers will be given bags marked for as Recyclable and Non Recyclable and after the cleanup the items will be categorized and weighed.

Blue View Divers along with the businesses situated along this beautiful beach are increasingly concerned by the amount of rubbish we find and the impact this is making both to the environment and the enjoyment of tourists visiting these islands.

Water and Bin bags will be provided for all volunteers and afterwards, Sunflower Bar on the beach will be hosting a post cleanup barbeque for all volunteers from 7.30pm onwards.

20th September
Blue View Divers will be coordinating a dive cleanup and Reef Check on this day. We will be meeting in front of the Tourist Police office near Ban Phu Yai opposite Visa diving at 9.15am
Divers should be rescue diver level or above.
Cleanup bags, water and boats will be provided by Blue View Divers.
Any donations of food, water, cleanup bags or boats is very welcome.
We aim to return to Koh Phi Phi Don at 2.15pm.

How can divers help? Blue View Divers in partnership with Greenfins Thailand and the Phuket Marine Biological Center is bringing a simple, non-invasive coral reef monitoring method called Reefwatch to divers who are passionate enough to make a difference.
Staff will provide a thorough briefing and short presentation on Reefwatch survey techniques, enabling volunteers on one of the day’s dives to collect valuable information and data which marine biologists and government departments will use to monitor the reef’s health and help care for the reefs we visit.

Project AWARE Foundation is the dive industry’s leading nonprofit environmental organization working in partnership with divers and water enthusiasts to conserve underwater environments through education, advocacy and action. For more information about Project AWARE conservation initiatives visit Welcome to Project AWARE

Greenfins Thailand aim to protect and conserve coral reefs by establishing and implementing environmentally friendly guidelines to promote a sustainable diving tourism industry. Since being founded in 2004 have been dedicated to protecting the reef's of Thailand through raising awareness and teaching Reef Watch methods for ongoing monitoring. In support of the International Year of the Reef (IYOR) 2008 they are pushing for a direct involvement of all communities within Thailand to adopt responsibility and commit to looking after the reefs and reduce our daily impacts on the marine environment. For more information about Greenfins please visit
http://www.greenfins-thailand.org


21st September
Blue View Divers will be working with the local school in Tonsai to organise a cleanup with the local schoolchildren, we aim to educate the children in Thai about decomposition of rubbish and how to identify what is recyclable and what is not before proceeding to comb Tonsai beach for rubbish.
Volunteers will be given bags marked for as Recyclable and Non Recyclable and after the cleanup the items will be categorized and weighed.


All volunteers are welcome to join on any of these dates.

For more information please contact Lisa from Blue View Divers at info@blueviewdivers.com or call us on +66 84848 7036

 

[BlueViewDivers]

International Cleanup Day 19th and 20th of September 2009


Blue View Divers of Koh Phi Phi, Thailand coordinated a two day event for Project Aware International Clean Up Day, this September.

Working alongside Scuba Schools International, Project Aware and many of the local businesses in Koh Phi Phi, we organized both beach and underwater cleanups for the event.



Last year we organized a similar event and received a great response from people living on the island and tourists alike. We had over 100 volunteers take part in the three day cleanup and gathered nearly 700 Kilograms of rubbish both above and underwater.



With the increase in tourism on this tropical island we are also seeing an increase in waste production and the inadequacy of the island’s systems to cope with the growth in rubbish. The island has no proper bin or recycling bin system and despite many of the locals recycling cans and plastics for cash much of the items that can be recycled are still being discarded and end up in a landfill.

Despite tourists being attracted to the allure of tropical island paradise, it begs the question as to whether the impact of tourism is resulting in Paradise Lost in Phi Phi.



On the 19th of September we coordinated a beach cleanup on Loh Dalum Bay, a once quiet beach that has now become crowded with beach bars.

The long stretch of beach is littered with cigarette butts, ring pulls, beer cans and bottles as well as numerous other items discarded from partygoers and washed in by the tides.



Volunteers from local businesses, bars, restaurants and dive schools as well as countless tourists worked together to collect all the rubbish along Loh Dalum Beach.

People sunbathing on the beach got up and participated in cleaning Loh Dalum Beach in an effort that involved over 80 people.

The volunteers were divided into three groups, with stations set up with water and weighing scales in front of Sunflower Bar, Ciao Bella and Cabana Hotel Beach.



The volunteers combed the beach over the period of two hours and amongst them collected 1,326 Kilograms of rubbish.



This was divided into recyclable and non recyclable items and to reduce the amount of plastic, rubbish was collected into builder’s sacks kindly donated by Spider Monkey Climbing.

The amount of glass collected on Loh Dalum Beach weighed 198.5 Kilograms.

The amount of Recyclable rubbish (cans and plastic bottles) amounted to 77.4 kilograms.



The recyclable rubbish was given to the facility on Koh Phi Phi, whilst the rest of the rubbish was brought off the island to a facility in Bangkok, which divided the rubbish into what could be recycled which could not be dealt with by the small recycling facility situated in Koh Phi Phi.

Afterwards, Sunflower bar on Loh Dalum Beach was kind enough to provide a free barbeque for the tired volunteers.



The 20th of September we organized a dive clean up where over 19 Volunteers came and participated in cleaning the dive sites.

We coordinated rental of a big boat from Visa Diving and a long tail boat working side by side to bring rubbish brought up by divers to the larger boat.

Armed with gloves, mesh bags and knives and cutters divers traveled out to Viking Cave.



Plunging into the water and gliding over the coral reef, divers worked together to remove netting, plastic bottles and other marine debris from the dive sites.

We used a base station manned by divers from Blue View and the Tourist Police to operate the lift bags bringing rubbish to the surface for the longtail boat to collect.



A snorkel team of two helped bring the items up to the longtail boat and this reduced the need for divers to ascend to the surface as bags could be emptied and sent back down to the divers, reducing the dangers of bounce diving during cleanups.



Netting and plastics are devastating to the marine life in our ecosystem, it is estimated that 2 million seabirds worldwide die from ingesting plastic bags every year, one specimen found had ingested over 1000 pieces of plastic debris.

The World Wildlife Fund for Nature estimates that more than 100,000 whales, turtles, seals and birds die through suffocation, entanglement and ingestion of plastic bags and other items.



Plastic bags also resemble jellyfish, the turtle’s favourite food. Phi Phi is blessed with a healthy community of Hawksbill Turtles, despite them being one of the more endangered species of turtle.

However, their habitat and lifestyle is being threatened by the careless disposal of rubbish.

Discarded fishing nets and cages trap marine life and animals such as turtles or sea snakes that breathe air, when they become entangled they end up suffocating, unable to break free.



Amongst the flotsam and jetsam recovered from the dives in front of the cave were numerous tires, car batteries and huge expanses of netting.



On the second dive we explored the site where Pileh Wall and Lohsammah Bay meet.

This is a popular area for snorkelers coming to Koh Phi Phi, we discovered a a huge area of Staghorn Corals tangled with fishing nets, divers worked slowly and carefully in the strong current to remove the netting and ropes from the staghorns without breaking off parts of the fragile and delicate corals which when damaged take years to recuperate.



Divers were given a treat when towards the end of the cleanup two leopard sharks swam around as if curious about the divers working on the reef who stopped to watch their graceful progress.



One member of the team was designated reef watch monitor and gathered data on fish and coral populations on the reef to be submitted to Greenfins for a better understanding of the health of marine life in our local waters.



The total amount of rubbish collected from the dive cleanup was over 680 Kilograms, in total over the two days we had collected more than twice the amount gathered in last year’s project! This would not have been possible without all the support and enthusiasm from volunteers and local businesses.



Blue View Divers would like to thank the following sponsors for helping make this project possible:



Amico Restaurant, Aquamaster, Aquamundo, Aquanauts Scuba, Atul Keshav, Ayudhaya Bank, Barrakuda Diving, Ciao Bella,The Geoff Starr Fund, Ibiza Bar, Mama Resto, Panda Restaurant, Pearl Andaman, Phi Phi Bakery, Phi Phi Scuba Diving Center, Phi Phi Tourist Police, Scuba Schools International, Seafrog Diving, Sheryl and Tony Brown, Simon Collins, Spider Monkey Climbing, Sports Bar, Sunflower Bar, Unni’s Restaurant, Viking Divers, Visa Diving,